


Contraband

by Nary



Category: Diablotin
Genre: Drinking, Fraternization, Gen, House Rat, Military, Organized Crime, Pre-Canon, Psyrene War, Smoking, Unrequited Crush, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:18:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jillain and - Enderlen, was it? You're on late watch tonight," Ander said firmly.  "Now, if you're still feeling dizzy, get yourself to the medical tent, Jillain.  Otherwise, both of you get back to work."</p><p>"I'm doing better, sir," she said, a bit abashed, picking up the shovel she'd left leaning against a tree.</p><p>"Both of you," Ander emphasized, with a sharp glance at Enderlen.  He was still meeting Ander's gaze, not aggressively, but evenly.  This was a man who'd been in fights, Ander suddenly thought - he was watching his opponent, sizing him up, waiting for him to make a move or a mistake or do anything out of the ordinary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contraband

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [War Bonds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604230) by [Measured_Words](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words). 



As a junior officer, Ander got the shittiest jobs. One was to supervise work details, which for a newly-built base like Tashoren - a command post in Psyra, some way back from the front lines - meant standing out in the withering sun to watch people dig latrines. At least, he reflected, he wasn't one of the poor privates with the shovels.

In theory they could have done this with magic - it was a mixed battalion, with sorcerers about equal in numbers with the more conventional soldiers - but all the casters who could sling dirt around had been delegated to fortification duty. Holes to crap in weren't seen as that high of a priority, although Ander was fairly sure they were going to see a good deal more use than defenses against incoming attacks, at least for the time being. 

Ander strolled along the line, doing a quick count of the soldiers at work. He came up two short. That was a problem, or at least it could be if he didn't deal with it. There weren't too many places for shirkers to hide. His gaze went to the woods just beyond the trench they were digging. Circling around to the other side of the pit, he shouted to the crew to keep on working and stepped into the treeline.

The smell of cigarette smoke drew him in the right direction. The two soldiers quickly stubbed out their smokes when they saw him, and drew up from the trees they'd been lounging against. The girl he recognized as one of his sorcs - Jill? Something like that. The skinny guy he wasn't sure about. 

"Taking a break?" he asked dryly. Some of the officers would just have shouted them back to work, and likely given them extra duties for slacking, but Ander had his own strategies for dealing with recalcitrant soldiers.

"Sorry, sir," said the sorcerer - Jillain, he remembered her name now. She looked worried, and kind of guilty - he suspected the impromptu break had probably been her idea. "I came over all dizzy with the heat, so I needed to get into the shade for a minute, and Enderlen was just checking I was okay."

"Dizzy, hm? Smoking help with that?"

She shrugged, looking away. The small guy still hadn't said anything, but was keeping his brown eyes stubbornly fixed on Ander, as if daring him to punish them for it.

"Jillain and - Enderlen, was it? You're on late watch tonight," Ander said firmly. "Now, if you're still feeling dizzy, get yourself to the medical tent, Jillain. Otherwise, both of you get back to work."

"I'm doing better, sir," she said, a bit abashed, picking up the shovel she'd left leaning against a tree.

"Both of you," Ander emphasized, with a sharp glance at Enderlen. He was still meeting Ander's gaze, not aggressively, but evenly. This was a man who'd been in fights, Ander suddenly thought - he was watching his opponent, sizing him up, waiting for him to make a move or a mistake or do anything out of the ordinary. 

"Yes sir," he said calmly, hefting his own shovel. His accent spoke of a background in the Shambles, or maybe the west end of Rhenea - tough neighbourhoods whichever side of the wall you were on. "Back to the shithole."

Ander suppressed a laugh, because that wouldn't do much for his authority. "You said it, not me, private." He waited until they made their way back to the digging crew, following them at a short distance. 

"See," he heard Jillain say under her breath, "he's not that bad."

"Not stuck-up like most o' them officers, anyway," Enderlen shrugged. Ander felt conflicted - pleased but worried. Could all the ordinary troops tell he wasn't from the same background as the other officers, hadn't been born expecting to order people around? Or maybe it was just this one who'd seen through his best efforts... 

After dinner that night, Ander took a look through his files until he found _Enderlen, Ralf, age 21, House Rat._ That was interesting, Ander thought, though not unexpected - there weren't a lot of other Rats in this division, but Enderlen's features gave it away to someone who knew what they were looking for. He'd been conscripted, which wasn't a huge surprise given his attitude, and Ander's guess about his background was correct, at least according to the address of his next of kin, someone named Vella Enderlen. Ander wondered for a minute if it was a wife, sister, or what, until he read a little further and saw that it was his mother. Not married, then. Enderlen had been deemed fit to serve, healthy despite his small stature, and had gone through basic training at Ranis, where he had been graded as proficient in firearms and stealth operations. There was also a note indicating he'd been punished twice for insubordination, and had been found with contraband - Ander wasn't sure what, but alcohol was the most likely candidate. 

He looked again at the address - Three Dagger Court, in Rhenea. That rang a bell. Enderlen probably ran with the Triple Daggers then - they were the local gang of toughs, not prominent or well-connected outside their immediate neighbourhood. They were mostly involved with petty crime and pushing people around who got in their way, when they weren't getting drunk and squabbling amongst themselves. The kind of place a defiant, tough little son of a bitch would fit right in. 

Ander kept an eye on him as work on the base continued. Enderlen could work hard when he felt like it, but more often devoted his energies to finding ways to get out of the more grueling tasks. Once the essentials of construction were done, the troops were set to further training. Ander hated the way they taught the sorcs especially, and worked to break them of some of their bad habits. 

"You're not gonna get peace and quiet to focus on your spells," he told them. "You gotta learn to cast even when there's people screaming and running around, or when there's bombs falling close enough to knock you senseless." He made them practice, recruiting the non-spellcasters to assist by causing as much distraction as they could. Enderlen seemed to enjoy that side of the training, at least, taking an unseemly amount of enjoyment out of finding creative ways to harass the sorcs while they tried to concentrate. 

Enderlen also proved himself useful when it came to the second prong of Ander's remedial education for sorcerers - weapons training. "You're gonna get a few spells a day - maybe a dozen or fifteen or so if you're good." Most of them weren't that good, at least not yet. "And that's assuming you got a good rest the night before, which, I hate to break it to you, ain't gonna happen in the middle of a battle. What're you gonna do after that? What're you gonna do when you got nothing left to cast? Learn to shoot a fuckin' gun, that's what." He paired them up with the soldiers who had some actual hands-on experience with firearms, and got them working on the basics. Enderlen knew his way around a pistol, and while his teaching style could use some refinement ("squeeze the trigger, don't fuckin' jerk it, it ain't your dick", Ander overheard him telling a shy diviner named Harald, who turned six shades of red), he seemed to get the point across. 

Ander didn't much enjoy hanging out with the other officers, even though he was supposed to socialize with them. They were mostly a bunch of nobles who'd gone through military school together, and he was a mobster from Rhenea, so they didn't have much to talk about. He wished sometimes that he could join in with the card games the enlisted troops played in the evenings, but it took an invitation from one of them to get him to break the ice a little. The offer came from Harald, the soft-spoken diviner, as it turned out, although Ander suspected Jillain was the instigating force behind him, as usual. Enderlen was there too, and after the card game wrapped up, Ander fell to chatting with him while they had a smoke. It was good to have someone to talk to who understood where he was coming from, and who didn't need a lot of awkward explanations about the Mala Tajna. Ander felt more relaxed after that evening than he had in weeks.

One evening, Ander was passing by the barracks on his way back to the officers' quarters, and noticed Enderlen sitting outside, sharpening a blade. At first Ander assumed it must be his razor, but then he realized it was too long and pointed for that. He stepped over to get a closer look. Enderlen looked up and, as if expecting to get in trouble, shoved the items out of sight behind the crate he was seated on. "Evenin', sir," he said, standing and throwing up a rather sloppy salute.

"At ease," Ander told him. "What's behind the box, Ralf?"

When Enderlen didn't answer right away, he leaned over to have a look himself. Sure enough, three lethal-looking switchblades and a whetstone were tucked away back there. "Those don't look like army issue." They were too good for that. The knives issued to soldiers were cheap steel, without folding blades, and were mostly kept in boot holsters or in a belt sheath, neither of which Ralf was currently wearing. They tended to get used to open cans, toast bread, and scrape mud out from between the treads of soldiers' boots.

Ralf tried to act casual. "Personal possessions, sir..."

"Gift from home?" Ander smiled, trying to set him more at ease. Technically, soldiers could use their own equipment, but the brass tended to frown on enlisted troops carrying concealed weapons that hadn't been approved by a superior.

Ralf shrugged. "Got one of my sisters to send 'em. My last set got confiscated in basic."

So that was the 'contraband' he'd been caught with. At least it was more interesting than booze. "Pick 'em up," Ander said with a nod. "Let's see if you know how to use 'em."

Gathering up the knives with a wary look, Ralf eyed him. "What, you want me to come at you?"

"Shit no," Ander told him with a laugh. "I wouldn't stand a chance. Us sorc officers, you know, worse'n useless in a fight."

Ralf smirked. "You said it, not me, sir." 

"Yeah, an' I told you to call me Ander when we ain't on the job. I just wanna see what you can do with those pig-stickers."

"Well, okay." Ralf took a step back, unbuttoning and rolling up his sleeves. To Ander's surprise, along each of his forearms was a leather holder, strapped carefully into place. He thought there were springs involved too, but he didn't get a really clear look at them. Ralf placed one of the knives on either side, and tucked the third into the top of his right boot. Then he slid his sleeves back into place, shifting a little to get adjusted. Ander wouldn't have known the knives were there if he hadn't just seen Ralf hide them.  


Ralf hitched his shoulders, cocking his head to one side as he limbered up. Then, moving almost too fast for Ander to see what he was doing, he jerked both arms out to the sides and suddenly a knife was in each hand, blade already extended. He wheeled around, threw one at the wooden wall of the barracks, then the second was quivering maybe an inch away from it, even as he was bending to grab the last one from his boot. He turned the crouch into a roll, tumbling to Ander's feet where, Ander realized on looking down, the final knife was held to his hamstring. Ralf looked up at him like he still didn't quite trust he wasn't about to get into trouble for this demonstration, then, as calmly as could be, stood up and dusted himself off.  


"Not bad," Ander managed to say. "I guess you do know how to use 'em."  


"Lotta practice, sir... Ander." Ralf strolled over to yank his knives out of the wall where they were stuck.  


Ander didn't ask what or who Ralf had been practicing on - he could make an educated guess. "Well, I'll put a note in your file that you've got my permission to have your own weapons concealed on your person."  


Ralf looked surprised and relieved at that, but hid it quickly, nodding. "Much obliged."  


"Void, I'll feel better knowin' you've got those when you're watchin' my back," Ander said with a smile, wondering just how long it would take Ralf to trust him as a commanding officer. He had a feeling it might be a while, but also that it might be worth putting in the necessary time and effort.

As the weeks wore on, the soldiers settled into their routines at the base, although the officers did their best to keep them from becoming complacent. Even though they were far enough from the front lines that an attack wasn't likely, you never knew with the Psyrenes - they liked to engage in stealth raids and guerilla tactics, and the local farmers and villagers who seemed welcoming enough to the Empire's troops might be secretly plotting against them, so it was important to keep alert. Ander continued running his drills and training his soldiers in ways to keep themselves from getting killed, and in the evenings, he gradually got to know them better as people.

For instance, he learned that Jillain was from way up north, in Gouge, had three older brothers from whom she'd learned to drink and play cards, and had once broken her arm chasing kobolds on horseback when she got snagged by one of their traps. Desmey's parents owned a brewery, she hated anything with olives, and she could do spot-on impersonations of all of the officers in camp, Ander included. Harald was an only child, he couldn't resist oranges, which most of the soldiers had a habit of pinching from the groves nearby, and he liked bird-watching, of all things. 

Ralf didn't talk so much about his past, but Ander did get a few things out of him. He had four sisters, two older and two younger - Hanna, Macie, Cazilia, and Dinah. Caz was the one who had sent him the knives. Ander had guessed right about his past with the Triple Daggers - Ralf didn't give the gang's name, but dropped enough hints and names of a few other members, letting Ander fill in the blanks. Mostly, though, he talked about the present, giving vent to his feelings about their day-to-day tasks, the quality of military food, or about the war more generally - feelings Ander largely shared, if he was honest. He was darkly funny, and had sharp eyes and a sharper tongue when something got under his skin. He didn't seem to have any plans for what to do after - maybe he assumed there wasn't going to be an 'after'. Ander started to wonder if maybe recruiting him into the Mala Tajna someday might be an option.

For a little while, he also wondered whether Ralf might be sleeping with Jillain. Technically soldiers weren't supposed to fraternize, but everyone knew it happened, and as long as it wasn't causing them to neglect their responsibilities or generating jealous fights within the ranks, it was mostly overlooked, punished with a slap on the wrist if a couple got caught. The medics even issued the female soldiers birth control potions if they came and requested them, no questions asked - the brass had decided it was a better investment than losing a trained soldier to pregnancy. Ralf and Jillain had gone through basic together, and seemed pretty close, teasing and joking around together, so Ander wasn't sure if they might be more than friends. He tried not to worry about it, or about the odd anxious feeling the idea gave him in his belly.

Finally one night a couple of squads had leave to go off-base, including Enderlen's. Usually this meant heading to Kestel, which was the nearest village to Tashoren, a couple of miles to the west. It was a town with one dirt road and two competing taverns, but it wasn't the base, which made it exciting. Ander watched them set off, Jillain with one arm draped over Ralf's shoulders and the other linked with Harald's, in the midst of a group of about a dozen boisterous soldiers, more than ready for a night out. He wished that he could go with them, but it was one thing to play a few hands of cards with the enlisted troops, and another to go to a tavern and get drunk with them. Besides, he wasn't sure what might happen if his inhibitions fell low enough, but knew that it would probably be nothing good.

Instead, he made his way back to the office he shared with Lieutenant Cairvelle and pulled out a book on tactics of magical combat he'd been meaning to read for months. It was just about as useless as he'd expected - it was at least eighty years old, and whoever had written it hadn't anticipated the widespread use of guns and artillery, or the development of technologies like the telegraph and the automobile that threatened to undermine some of the advantages spellcasters had once possessed. Still, it had a few interesting points amidst the junk - ideas about troop positioning and skirmishing styles of combat that might not be totally out of date - and he struggled his way through it despite wanting to toss it aside. It helped that he poured himself a drink, and kept topping it up as he read.

He heard the lights out call for the soldiers, and sometime later the watches changing shifts at midnight. He knew he ought to go to bed - he'd have to be up at six, but he'd always been more of a night owl, and besides, he didn't know if he'd be able to sleep if he did go to bed. He was feeling itchy, his skin crawling the way it did sometimes when he was stressed or upset about something he couldn't fix. Back home he had developed ways of dealing with those feelings, although he found the trips to the whorehouse unpleasant, but here he didn't even have that option. Sharing quarters with Cairvelle was difficult enough without adding these feelings into the mix. He lit a cigarette instead, and paced around the small room sucking the acrid smoke into his lungs and breathing it out in fretful clouds.

A quiet tap at the door surprised him. Everyone except the folks on watch should by all rights have been in bed by now, and if the night shift had spotted some problem they wouldn't be knocking softly, they'd be ringing alarm bells and shouting. Maybe it was Cairvelle, wondering why he hadn't come to bed yet. He opened the door and was startled to see Ralf there. "You should be at the bar," he said, blurting the first thing that came into his head (well, one of the first things).

"Desmey drank herself sick so I walked her back." Ralf looked rather the worse for wear himself, and Ander knew he should order him off to bed - both because he was going to feel like shit in the morning, and because it would look peculiar if anyone happened to notice them standing here talking. 

Instead he said, "Come inside."

Ralf peered curiously around the small makeshift office - the desk, the shelf of books, the narrow cot that Ander had put there for grabbing a nap between meetings, or for when Cairvelle was snoring. "Why're you up so late?"

"Reading," Ander said. "Couldn't sleep." It was more or less true, anyway. "Why're you here?" he countered, crossing his arms sternly.

Ralf shrugged, seemingly absorbed in reading the titles on Ander's shelf. "Dunno. Folks were talkin' about you some, at the tavern, an' I got to thinkin' it woulda been better if you'd been there too. Just wondered how you were doin', an' saw your light was still on after I dropped Desmey off with the medics."

It shouldn't have meant anything special that Ralf was the type of guy who'd walk a drunk woman back safely to base, instead of leading her to one of the soldiers' campsites in the woods and having his way with her while she was too out of it to protest. It was just common decency, Ander thought, but still, it told him a little more about the man. "I was just havin' a drink," he said. "You want one too?"

"I'd say you were havin' more than one," Ralf said. "But I won't say no to a glass of whiskey - you officers get the good stuff."

Ander poured him a glass, topping up his own as well. "Other than Desmey gettin' sick, did you lot have a good night out?"

"Sure," Ralf said. "Anything seems good after here. No offense intended," he added. 

"Believe me, none taken. Did the others stay longer, then?"

"Yeah, well, Jillain an' Harald got a room 'round the time we left, looked like they were plannin' to spend the night." Ralf's expression was hard to read, but to Ander he sounded resigned, not jealous or bitter.

"You sweet on her?" he asked cautiously, lighting another smoke for himself.

"Nah," Ralf said, pulling out a smoke of his own to accompany his drink, then patting his pockets for a matchbox. Ander drew out his lighter and flicked it open, and Ralf leaned forward with a grateful nod to light it. "I just hope he'll treat her good." He looked like he might have more to say, but took a swallow of his whiskey instead.

Ander sat down on the cot, leaving enough room for Ralf to join him if he was so inclined. Ralf took the hint after a few moments and came to join him there. Ander could smell the booze on him, and the smoke, and underneath that, a scent that only belonged to Ralf. He wanted to lean closer and just breathe it in, but he settled for the way the cot sagged and brought them closer together without either of them having to up and move, sliding until their shoulders touched. 

It gradually dawned on him that he was sitting here drinking with a subordinate on the wrong side of midnight, and imagining nuzzling into his neck to sniff him, and that was a serious problem that he was going to have to get under control. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to kick Ralf out just yet. Even being this close to him, just enough to lean against one another shoulder to shoulder, was easing the itchy, uncomfortable feeling that had been bothering him all evening. That slight contact made it worthwhile, even if it could never - and would never - go further, for a whole host of sensible reasons. 

They didn't speak much. Ander worried about ruining the moment with awkward conversation. Better to keep his mouth shut except for drinking and smoking. Ralf did the same, taking his time to savour the fine whiskey. Finally, when his glass had been empty for a few minutes, he glanced over to Ander. "I should get goin'," he said, maybe a bit reluctantly.

"Yeah, tomorrow's gonna be miserable," Ander agreed. "I got an early meeting, an' you've gotta be up at the crack of dawn like usual."

"Well, at least I ain't walkin' back from Kestel in the dark to make it by roll call," Ralf said.

Ander grinned. "There you go, makin' the best out of a shitty situation."

Ralf stood up, stretching, only a little unsteady on his feet. "What else is there to do out here?"

There was no answer to that. Ander rose as well, accepting Ralf's empty glass. "See you tomorrow, I guess."

"Yeah," said Ralf. He slipped out the door more quietly than his drunken state would have suggested was possible.

Ander spent the next couple of weeks trying to do as he'd promised himself and get his feelings for Ralf under control. When he caught himself thinking about him, he turned his mind to other matters. He found reasons not to socialize with the soldiers when they invited him, citing exhaustion or paperwork to catch up on or other perfectly reasonable excuses. He told himself that it was stupid to get attached to any of them - they were in a war, they could be killed at any time, and he worried, at least a little, about his ability to order someone he cared about that much into danger.

He was in a morning briefing with Cairvelle and the rest of the officers, concerning the bridge that spanned the Arvelen river, not too far from Tashoren. A platoon was going to be sent across the river to relieve a group of soliders who'd come under attack and were pinned down, but before they could do that, they needed to know the bridge was secure. There were reports of Psyrene activity in that area, and Arguelles wanted to send out scouts in advance of the platoon. "Lieutenant Cairvelle, do you have a group that might be suitable for this mission?"

Cairvelle looked momentarily befuddled to have been called upon, like a boy in school caught without his homework finished. "Second Lieutenant Suterre would be best placed to suggest soldiers, sir," he said, throwing Ander under the bus instead.

Ander sat up straighter as Arguelles and all the other officers looked to him. "Sir, I'd suggest sending Private Desmey and Private Flyn - they're both good with divination and detection spells." He hesitated only a split second before pushing on. "Private Enderlen is trained in stealth operations and weapons, and he would be fully qualified to make sure they get there and back safely and quietly."

"All right," said Arguelles. "Brief them on the mission. They'll head out at 1400 hours, that should give them enough time to make it back and report well before sunset."

"Yes, sir," Ander said, and sat back in his chair as the meeting moved on to other matters. It would be all right, he told himself. Ralf could take care of himself. He had to be able to let him go, and this was the best way to prove to himself that he could. He'd done it. He just wished it didn't feel so much like he was losing him already.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [naryrising](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/naryrising) if you want to ask questions, make requests, or chat!


End file.
